


nothing but a high-class hostage

by Skye_Writer



Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Adventure, Family, Gen
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2012-09-05
Updated: 2012-09-04
Packaged: 2017-11-13 14:32:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,249
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/504505
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Skye_Writer/pseuds/Skye_Writer
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When Amy and the Doctor are captured by a high-class, 51st-century gangster, Rory and River must work together to get them back.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

It wasn’t that dealing with River _after_ was strange. Actually. It was strange, but it was a lot of other things, too. 

*** *** ***

A month had passed since Berlin, and the Doctor landed the TARDIS in the middle of some ancient alien city. He carried on as usual on their way to the doors, Amy and Rory trailing after him, listening to him explain why this city was so important in this system, and the wonders their eyes were about to behold. All of it fell through Rory’s mind like it usually did, but he was pretty sure even the Doctor forgot what he was saying when he opened the doors with a flourish to reveal—

“A wall,” Rory said, peering over the Doctor’s shoulder. It was stating the obvious, but half the time the Doctor would correct him with an explanation of what they were really looking at, so Rory figured it would at least keep him and Amy up on whatever the Doctor was thinking. 

“We can see that,” Amy teased, shoving him gently as she edged around to stand next to the Doctor. 

It was a wall. A very tall wall, as far as Rory could tell, though it didn’t appear to be made of the glittering crystal whatever the Doctor had been talking about a moment before. It was dark outside the TARDIS, but the TARDIS’s golden light shone straight up the wall, illuminating the pale stone and revealing lines and lines of writing, almost as far up as Rory could see.

“Yes, it’s a wall,” the Doctor said slowly. “One of the Ra’athani wishing walls, I think, but…” He glanced both ways, then stepped out of the TARDIS, walking straight up to the wall. Amy followed him, and so too did Rory, after pausing to make sure the doors shut behind them. “We landed here for a reason, though.”

“What reason?” Amy asked, stopping just a few inches from the wall and touching it gingerly with the tips of her fingers. “What does the writing say?” She traced one of the oddly shaped glyphs with her finger, probably wondering as Rory was why the TARDIS hadn’t translated it for them yet.

“Wishes,” the Doctor replied, turning to grin at them both in the semi-darkness. “Ra’athani’s an ancient language, probably one of the oldest in this galaxy, the TARDIS must be off a bit. But yes, they’re all wishes,” he continued, backing a few steps away from the wall and craning his neck to stare up at it. “Wishing for love and good luck, all the usual sorts of things. Every single line on this wall is a wish.

“Except that one.” He pointed up at an indeterminate point just above their heads.

Amy rushed over at once to have a look. “Which one? Where is it?”

“Well, for starters, Pond, it’s the only line written in English.”

Rory looked up then, and as he slowly walked over to join Amy and the Doctor, he found the single line on this massive wall he could understand:

_Hello sweetie. Care for a jaunt?_


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is still a work in progress, so updates will be few and far between for a while. I'll try to stay on top of things, though. Thanks for reading.

The Church had come to call again. 

River actually happened to be in her cell that day, and so the Warden sent half the prison’s available complement of guards to handcuff her and bring her to his office. It was hardly necessary, but if he wanted to show her (again) how he was in control of this prison, then so be it. She might have tried breaking out during the transfer if she didn’t know what was coming. The Church was here. They had a job for her, and if she did it for them, they might knock a few more of those life sentences off her stay. If she did a runner the moment they darkened her door… well.

The Church wanted to arrest Rufis Sieber. River didn’t tell the cantankerous Cardinal sitting before her that this was in all likelihood an incredibly bad idea. Wretched as he was, Sieber had a finger or two in nearly every pie in the galaxy, and while he used many of those pies to do illegal things, he did them so discreetly that not even the Church would be able to pin him down.

The Cardinal had been mentioning this very fact when he added, with a significant glance at River, “And this is where you come in, Doctor Song.”

“And what am I supposed to do about Rufis Sieber?” River asked. “Kiss him?”

“Doctor Song,” the Warden snapped in a warning tone. Bless him, he knew her too well.

“It’s quite all right, Warden,” the Cardinal said. He cleared his throat and continued, “We have overwhelming evidence from multiple sources and allies that Mr. Sieber is due to be at a two-night gala function on Hepaxis starting tomorrow evening. Our sources have also confirmed that Sieber uses a warehouse on Jessaline Two as a waystation for his various… shipments. 

“Doctor Song, you are to gather for us enough concrete evidence that we might finally make Mr. Sieber’s arrest. Since this is a covert mission, I’m afraid the Church’s involvement must end here. Feel free to use whatever methods you see fit, and make sure you get the job done before Mr. Sieber finishes his time at the gala.”

River smiled. “Of course, Cardinal.”

The Warden unlocked her cuffs with a grudging glare, and she bid them both a polite goodbye before sauntering back to her cell to collect the essentials: her diary, her gun, and her vortex manipulator.

*** *** ***

She could have done the job by herself, but she didn’t really see the fun in that. It wasn’t often she was on a sanctioned (and _unsupervised_ ) trip away from Stormcage, and it seemed only fair that she make as much of it as she could. She left a note with the proper date and coordinates on an old Ra’athani wishing wall, then popped over to Seiber’s warehouse on Jessaline Two. She then found a nicely secluded spot about half a mile from the facility and waited.

The sound of the TARDIS’s groaning engines filled her ears not half an hour later. River smiled and got to her feet, watching as the TARDIS materialized before her, the same as ever. The engines stopped with the typical low toll, and half a moment later the door opened to reveal the Doctor’s face.

...and her parents’ faces. River blinked, but kept smiling as Amy and Rory followed the Doctor out of the TARDIS. To be fair, she should have expected this, but even so. She shrugged it off, though, as the Doctor approached, his lips pursed in that way that meant he was trying not to smile. 

“Hello, sweetie,” she said, grinning at him. The corner of his mouth twitched, which only made her smile wider. She turned her attention to her parents. “Hello, Amy, Rory. How are you doing?”

“We’re good,” Rory said, his face unreadable.

Amy smiled at her, her expression fond. “Yeah, we’re fine, River, thanks. It’s nice to see you.”

“You too,” River replied before turning to the Doctor. “So,” she said, pulling her diary out of the pouch on her belt, “when are we up to?”

She was instantly glad to see the Doctor pulling out the little black book he used for them out of his jacket. He began thumbing through it, but started speaking before he actually landed on a page, “Well, we’ve--we’ve done Berlin, so. You know.” He shrugged awkwardly.

She paused, holding his eyes for a moment before nodding briefly. He nodded back, and returned his attention to his book. “Have we gone fishing with the Queen yet?” she asked.

“No, I don’t think I have,” he replied. “Sounds interesting, though.”

She smiled at him. “Oh, it is. You should be doing it soon, if we’ve done Berlin.”

“All right.” He grinned at her briefly before tucking his book away again. “So, what’s the story here?” he asked, glancing around. “Jessaline Two isn’t really your style, River.”

“I’m on official business,” she replied, closing the diary and putting it away. “The Church are trying to arrest Rufus Sieber, and they want me to gather the necessary evidence to put him away. In exchange, they’re willing to throw out a few life sentences from my prison term. I thought it might be more fun if I invited company.”

“Still doesn’t seem very interesting,” the Doctor said.

“We can go somewhere afterwards if you like,” River said. “You’re not going to drag my parents to a Ra’athani party without me.”

He flushed a little. “I never--”

“It’s all right, we’ll talk about it later.” She winked at him, and spotted Rory behind him rubbing his forehead in frustration. “The sooner we get this done, the sooner we can leave.”

“Lead the way, Doctor Song,” the Doctor said.

*** *** ***

By this point in his life, Rory was used to walking down dark corridors on strange planets, usually on the way to or away from trouble. But he wasn’t used to doing it with his daughter.

River led the way down the corridor in question, her computer in one hand and a small torch in the other. Rory followed, feeling utterly useless but glancing around anyway, trying to figure out what this place was. The building itself was enormous, a shipping warehouse built for the age of starships and faster-than-light shuttles, River had explained. They were currently exploring a wing of the warehouse’s offices; the Doctor and Amy had split off half an hour ago to search an adjacent wing.

“So... um.” Rory swallowed. “What exactly are we looking for?”

“A computer terminal of some sort,” River replied. “Preferably a big one.”

“And why are we looking for a computer terminal?” he asked, pausing at a door and glancing in the tiny window. The office was dark, and it was hard to make out if there was actually anything in there or not. 

“If I’m right, any given computer terminal should be hooked up to the main server for this particular warehouse.” River paused at a door just up ahead, peeking through the window as she shone her torch through the glass. “Which means I should be able to hack into the server, and download all the data I need onto this.” She held up her computer.

“Right.” Rory walked up to join her at the door. “And why are we doing that?”

“To ensure that Rufus Sieber gets arrested for his crimes.” River tucked her computer and torch away and pulled out a lockpick that Rory remembered from America. “This’ll do,” she said, kneeling down in front of the keypad that seemed to serve as the door’s knob. “Keep a lookout, will you?”

Rory nodded and turned around. It was better than trying to talk, at least.

The corridors were mostly dark and, except for the sound of River gently prying the keypad apart, they were very silent. Rory glanced between either end of the corridor. Nothing.

It wasn’t that he didn’t know how to talk to River. She’d visited them many times over the summer, and he’s spoken to her plenty then. But this--this was different. It was like… He didn’t know what it was like. It seemed like their flat was a different space, a different dimension from the stuff they did with the Doctor. When River came to visit them at home, she was their daughter and he and Amy were her parents, and it was strange, but Rory could deal with it.

Out here, though... it was different. It was so different. River was still River, but it was like seeing a different side of her. The side that broke into intergalactic shipping warehouses and hacked computers as though it was an everyday occurrence, and maybe it was for her. Rory had never minded all that before, but now it felt like a chasm he couldn’t quite reach across. She was his daughter, and he could relate to her well enough when she was in that _space_ , but out here, in her _life_ , he couldn’t seem to relate to her at all. (He wondered briefly if his parents ever felt like this about him, and how exactly they dealt with it.)

He glanced up and down the corridor again. Still nothing. River had turned the keypad into a tangle of wires with bits of plastic plating hanging from it, though she seemed to know what she was doing with it. He shook his head and was about to turn back when River caught his eye.

“You all right?” she asked.

“Yeah, fine,” he replied automatically. “Just... thinking.” He shrugged.

River held his gaze for a moment, then returned to her surgical destruction of the keypad. “Thinking about what?” she asked.

“Oh, uh--well.” He felt his face flush. “Just--stuff.” He shrugged again.

“Dad...” He could see the smile spreading across her face, and the way she said that word as though it was nothing at all, as though she said it all the time—

He wished he could get used to it.

“I was just thinking about you,” he said slowly. “And me, and being your father but not really and... I dunno. It’s... confusing.”

“I know,” River said, looking back at him. “Would it help if I told you it gets better?”

Rory managed to smile. “Maybe.”

“It does get better,” River went on, holding two of her lockpicks between her fingers as she reached to her belt for what looked like a pair of wire cutters. “You get used to the random visits, having to check dates before you get past hello... Granted, it’s easier with you and Mum than it is with the Doctor.”

“Well, yeah,” Rory said. From what he’d seen--and what River had told him in America--her relationship with the Doctor was even more complicated, running in a madcap, back-to-front manner that sometimes didn’t even go back-to-front but skipped back and forth constantly between two poles of “he knows me” and “he doesn’t.” Even the Doctor couldn’t keep it quite straight; Rory had seen that little black book he now kept tucked away in his jacket.

“Could you come over and hold these?” she asked suddenly.

“Hold which?”

“These.” She indicated the picks in her hand, which, as he approached, seemed to be holding several different tangles of wire apart. “I’m afraid if I move them too much, it might set off an alarm, and the wire I need to cut is a bit tougher than I’d expected.”

“Right.” Reaching carefully over River’s hand, he took the ends of the picks gingerly, trying to hold them steady as River pulled her hand away. He held his breath as she pulled out a bright yellow wire with the ends of the cutter, then closed both hands around the handles and squeezed.

_Snap._

The wire parted. Something in the tangle of wires beeped twice--Rory’s heart skipped a beat--

\--and then the door hissed open.

He breathed again, and his hands drooped a little, shuffling the wires around. He scrambled to prop them back up the way they were, but River stopped him, catching the picks in her hand. “The alarm’s been overridden, Dad,” she said, pulling the picks away and tucking them away again. “We’re safe.”

She smiled at him, and Rory could only sigh and run a hand through his hair. “Do you do this a lot?” he asked as he followed her into the room. 

“Often enough,” River replied, glancing at him over her shoulder.

The lights came up automatically, and Rory glanced around to see what looked like a fairly standard office: cramped, walls painted gray, computer terminals separated by flimsy partitions. Granted, the computers were a bit more involved than anything he’d seen back home, and the partitions had electronic notices hanging from them, but outside of that, it seemed almost too normal.

“So is this it, then?” Rory asked. River had already booted up one of the computers and connected it to her handheld with a knotted cable. “We just get the information and go?”

“Yeah, pretty much.” River swept her fingers across the monitor in front of her--a touchscreen, Rory realized--then typed something in on her handheld. The computer played a soothing chord of music, and then they were looking at what Rory assumed was a homescreen of some sort. “Of course,” she continued, typing something else in on her handheld, “if we can’t connect to the main server’s database, then we’ll have to keep looking, but this is promising.”

“And then, what? We just go back to the TARDIS?”

“Yep.”

Rory opened his mouth to say something else, but shook his head and gave it up. He leaned gingerly against the electronic partition and folded his arms. The partition dinged after a moment and displayed a message in red, “Please do not lean on the partitions.” He ignored it. 

As he watched River work, shifting between typing on her handheld and manipulating items on the touchscreen, he mostly couldn’t believe how smoothly things were going. Usually by this point with the Doctor they were knee-deep in trouble, but River seemed to have a handle on things, which was more than he could say about the Doctor. Well. The Doctor often _did_ have a handle on things, but he wasn’t terribly great at showing it. River could be calm even if the universe was ending--he’d seen her at it.

“Got it.”

Rory looked up. River had shut down the terminal and was collecting her handheld with a smile on her face. “You got it?”

“It’s probably not what Cardinal Merkin had in mind,” she said, “but it should be more than enough to put Rufus Sieber away.” 

“Should we let Amy and the Doctor know we’re done?” Rory asked as he followed her out of the office and back down the corridor the way they had come. “Didn’t you give him that com thing?”

“I did at that,” River replied. She tapped the screen on her handheld a few times, then held it up to her ear like a cell phone. “Doctor?”

“What--sorry, yes, dear?” the Doctor asked, his voice tinny but loud enough that Rory could hear as he walked alongside River. 

“Rory and I found what we needed, so we can leave if you’re ready.”

“Really? Excellent!” There was some shuffling on the other end of the line, and a high pitched whir that Rory recognized as the sonic. “Amy and I were just looking into something, some room back here with a lot of big computers, if you need anything else...”

River laughed gently. “I think we’re fine, sweetie. We’ll meet you and Mum back at the TARDIS?”

“All right,” the Doctor replied. “Just give us a mo’...” The sonic whirred over the line again, and there was a loud crash. “Nothing to worry about--!” the Doctor said hastily, but then there was another crash.

River and Rory had stopped walking down the corridor, both of them now intently listening to the sounds coming from the Doctor’s end of the line.

There were more crashes, interspersed with the Doctor reassuring River that everything was fine, but then Amy screamed, just loud enough to come across the line, and an alarm went off--

\--and the alarm was going off around them as well, and before Rory could react River had grabbed his hand and everything around them went dark.


End file.
